Meta

Month: February 2013

So I thought I would do a short little aside on vehicles and what happened to them during the lateral blast at Mount St. Helens, only it turned out to be a long big aside and has to be split into two parts. This always happens to me. Here’s part one, wherein we deal with deposits and other sundry effects, and in part two, coming soon, we shall consider heat. This post was a bit gritty and abrasive; I promise the next will be hawt.

Aerial view of damaged logging equipment on Coldwater Ridge, north of Mount St. Helens. Skamania County, Washington. July 2, 1980. Image and caption courtesy USGS.

You’ll understand the reason for the title in a moment, although if you’re a Doctor Who fan, you’re already sniggering.

Right, so, here we are. Due to my mad photo organizing skillz and an inordinate amount of British detective shows, I’ve now got a folder full o’ botany. I figure I might as well get some use out of the stuff, seeing as how so much of it covers my beloved geology round here. Sigh. Continue reading “Bodacious Botany: Not Mace, I Said A Mace”→

Share the Verdad:

There’s this thing guaranteed to jam my rage button in the on position, and it’s when supercilious people whine, “But both sides do it!” in response to whatever outrageous behavior is noticed to be deepening the rifts in atheism at the moment.

So, things. Things have happened, and are happening, and sometimes some of you ask after them, which means other of you have thought of asking but haven’t because you don’t want to ask. So I’ll give you a few updates.

Having your consciousness raised is interesting. It’s a strange sensation, seeing the scenes that previously wouldn’t have caused a single eyelash to step up to the plate, spit on its hands, and prepare to bat. Then it’s pointed out to you that something’s wrong with the picture, and your eyelashes resemble the batter’s cage at a baseball stadium during spring training. I don’t think you ever really get used to it. And good thing, too, because we have a lot of scenes that should cause some consternation.

Okay, so this is the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen human beings do. Well, do while dancing, anyway. I mean, she’s standing en pointe on this dude’s head, and – just watch.

Words. I haven’t any. I just. That’s simply. Mwah.

You know what, that’s art. That’s pure bloody art right there, and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t give up on humanity in despair (you, my darlings, and my fellow Freethought Bloggers, plus the other folks out there doing magnificent work making this world better and more beautiful every day, are the other reasons). All right? It’s moments like these that just make me sit back with my jaw flapping gently in the fully unhinged position and my eyes popping out and my poor little tempted-to-be-misanthropic heart welling, and I burst out with a robust, “I bloody love people!” when I’m capable of drawing breath again.

Share the Verdad:

Oh, those early freethinkers could turn a phrase on a dime, my darlings, and it’s time we had a selection of their quotable bits. Here I’ve a small selection of quotes loosely themed around religion and morality. Do you have any favorites of your own? Do share!

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: “When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that Bibles, prayer-books, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brains of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of ‘Thus sayeth the Lord.’”

Robert Ingersoll: “Religion has not civilized man—man has civilized religion. God improves as man advances.”

Baron d’Holbach: “Is there anything better calculated to annihilate every idea of morality in the minds of men, than to make them understand that their God, who is so powerful and so perfect, is often compelled to use crime to accomplish His designs?”

Charles Southwell: “Witness the character of Him implied in the conceit of that popular preacher who declared ‘there are children in hell not a span long’—a declaration which could only be made by one whose humanity was extinguished by divinity.”

Matilda Joslyn Gage: “The church has ever obstructed the progress of humanity, delaying civilization and condemning the world to a moral barbarism from which there is no escape except through repudiation of its teachings.”

Torture Chamber of the Inquisition. From ‘A Complete History of the Inquisition’, Westminster, London 1736. Image and caption courtesy Wikimedia Commons.